Days on the Market of Flagstaff homes sold in 2008 as reported in Northern Arizona MLS |
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At the peak of the Flagstaff market frenzy (which, in comparison to other parts of the country, was a stroll), a home listed for sale was “stale on the market” if it didn't sell within two weeks. Today, in Flagstaff as throughout the country, many sellers have homes listed that have been on the market for six months or longer. Flagstaff buyers should look carefully behind the stated “days on the market” before discarding homes from their consideration. The reasons why a home has been on the market for so long may not be important to your choice. Still, as a buyer you are entitled to know the history of the home. Unfortunately, the “DOM” statistic may mislead you. The Flagstaff multiple-listing-service allows agents to see the actual history of a property, but the publicly available number of “days on the market” (or “DOM”) may be misleading for any particular home, and the statistical aggregates for DOM definitely are misleading. What “DOM” in the Flagstaff market means is the number of days from the date this listing of the property was entered into the MLS. Thus, if the home was listed with another agent for six months prior to this listing, those six months are not included in the count. Likewise, if the home was withdrawn from the market and then re-listed with the same agent later, the count begins anew. (I thought it had to be off the market 30 days for this to happen, but recently was told by our MLS officials that even this is not true.) Other Multiple-Listing-Service associations have attempted to deal with this gaming of the system by creating a category called “CDOM” or “cumulative days on the market.” Well, isn’t that what most people would think “DOM” is? Guess not. Agents in these other markets tell me that even with CDOM, listing agents will find ways to distort the number. There are other legitimate (non-gaming) situations that can make the house appear “stale” when it really is not. For example, a Flagstaff home is listed and then placed on “hold-don’t show” for a family celebration or for repairs or staging. Those days when the home is not available for showings are added to the total of days of the market even though the home has not really been in the competition during that time because it was not available for home buyer appointments. The only way for cautious buyers to know the history of a particular Flagstaff house is to ask their agent to research the property history for the house. This doesn’t help with the statistical comparisons (which, for reasons stated above, are truly meaningless), but it may help you understand the home you’ve chosen to investigate. Agents can find see how many times a listing has been on the market, whether it has ever been placed on hold, and whether it has been pending. Flagstaff agents will click on an MLS feature called “property history” for the first step in this research, but the search should not end there. The address and the tax identification number should be searched as well. When the raw history is determined for the Flagstaff home that has peaked your interest, your agent should then find out the “why” behind the numbers. Perhaps the price was too high initially, but is now realistic. Perhaps remodeling was done. Perhaps there was a “hold-don’t show” period that has nothing to do with the price or condition of the property. I’ll write more on how to work with your buyer representative in a slow real estate market later this week. | 
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